In communication systems, frame alignment is the process of identifying a beginning and/or end of a transmitted bit stream, e.g. in a frame. Frame alignment may be needed to enable a receiver to synchronize an incoming bit stream in a frame and to extract the data in the frame for further processing. Typically, frame alignment is achieved using a distinctive bit sequence in the frame to distinguish the frame beginning and/or end and to locate the actual data in the frame. The bit sequence for frame alignment may also be referred to as a synchronization pattern or framing bits. The synchronization patterns used in communication systems are usually fixed bit sequences that are located at specified positions in the frame. The synchronization patterns can occur repeatedly in a sequence of frames or bit streams and do not carry additional information besides indicating the beginning and/or end of a frame. Improving such frame alignment schemes may improve frame processing efficiency in communication systems.